In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image. It is a law of politics, as well as of biology, that every living thing loves above all else—even above its own life—its distinct identity, which sets it off from all other things. The conservative does not aspire to domination of the world, nor does he relish the prospect of a world reduced to a single pattern of government and civilization. —Russell Kirk
We hope you will join us in The Imaginative Conservativecommunity. The Imaginative Conservative is an on-line journal for those who seek the True, the Good and the Beautiful. We address culture, liberal learning, politics, political economy, literature, the arts and the American Republic in the tradition of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, Wilhelm Roepke, Robert Nisbet, M.E. Bradford, Eric Voegelin, Christopher Dawson and other leaders of Imaginative Conservatism (Visit our Bookstore to find books by/about these men) .
We address a wide variety of major issues including: What is the essence of conservatism? What was the role of faith in the American Founding? Is liberal learning still possible in the modern academy? Should conservatives and libertarians be allies? What is the proper role for the American Republic in spreading ordered liberty to other cultures/nations?
We have a great appreciation for the thought of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Irving Babbitt and Christopher Dawson, among other imaginative conservatives. However, some of us look at the state of Western culture and the American Republic and see a huge dark cloud which seems ready to unleash a storm that may well wash away what we most treasure of our inherited ways. Others focus on the silver lining which may be found in the next generation of traditional conservatives who have been inspired by Dr. Kirk and his like. We hope that The Imaginative Conservative answers T.S. Eliot’s call to “redeem the time, redeem the dream.”
Great quotation. It seems like too many conservatives have forgotten these principles.
It is a paradox of Chestertonian proportions that while one need no longer travel by steamship because airplanes are cheaper and quicker, and while the Internet can bring a smattering of foreign cultures into almost every home, that Americans are more naive, insular and self-satisfied than ever, thinking that the world longs to be like them and it is up to Americans to liberate them.
Kirk's disdain for interference in other culture's affairs unless it threatened the security and welfare of the U.S. is also evident in his 1991 speech to the Heritage Foundation. Kirk called President George H.W. Bush’s Operation Desert Storm “a radical course of intervention in the region of the Persian Gulf… Now indubitably Saddam Hussein is unrighteous … [but] are we to saturation-bomb most of Africa and Asia into righteousness, freedom and democracy?”